


Someone to Keep You Warm

by kirargent



Series: Follower Milestone Fics [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Hunter Jo, Librarian Anna, Libraries, Mild Language, Tea, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 13:08:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1819558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kirargent/pseuds/kirargent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://sapphirestiel.tumblr.com">sapphirestiel</a> asked: anna/jo where anna is a librarian and jo develops a sudden and unexpected passion for reading?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone to Keep You Warm

This isn't fair. This is so not fair.

It's so ridiculously, entirely unfair that Jo lets the glass library doors slam shut behind her when she walks in, drawing startled looks from people nearby.

Jo can't be bothered to feel bad. She shouldn't be here! If her mom really needed that damn lore book  _right now_  she should've just gotten it herself.

Jo has better things to do with her time, thank you very much. Specifically, she'd like to be ripping off the Friday evening wave of Hunters at the Roadhouse seeking respite from the cold. God, they're probably all smashed by now, drunk and leery and shittier at poker than ever.

Jo is never,  _ever_  agreeing to anything like this again - and she's telling Mom as much the _second_ she gets home.

She seethes at the scrap of paper in her hand, and at the book title scribbled in Mom's cramped handwriting. There's not even an author's name. Fantastic.

The library computers are huge and clunky and an ugly shade of beige, and Jo sits down in front of one with a clenched jaw. Her fingers run fast over the keyboard, and then she sits and stares angrily around the room as it takes forever for the directory to load.

She glares at the computer, and glares at the shelves around her, and glares at the cutesy little pamphlets recommending books, and glares at -

aw, crap.

Jo stops glaring. She's not gonna glare at someone that friggin'  _cute_ , holy shit. And Christ, it's just Jo's luck - girl looks like she's probably a librarian, too, all done up in a nice sweater and nice black pants with pale, slim hands efficiently re-shelving books. She's got a wave of bright red hair - too bright to be natural, but God, it looks good - and these big, dark eyes... " _petite_ " might be a good overall descriptor. Petite little nose, petite little wrists, tall, but...  _petite_.

And then she half-turns when a young girl asks her a question, and she  _smiles_ , and  _fuck_.

Jo blinks a few times, and monitors her breathing to make sure she's not doing some weird cute-girl freak-out shit, and forces her eyes back to the computer screen. Her heart is beating like it's been locked up in her ribcage and now it wants out.

Jo ignores it. She ignores the sweet, bright smile that still sits on pretty red lips, and she definitely doesn't watch as the cute redhead leads the library patron around a bookshelf and out of sight.

She copies down the book's call number with hurried hands, and takes off to find what she came for.

The path to find the book does not take her past Cute Librarian again.

Jo is not disappointed. There's no reason for her to be disappointed. She wouldn't have done anything even if she had seen her again - the girl isn't a hunter, and Jo's not cruel. She's not dragging someone into the life just because sometimes she wants a girl's hand to hold.

But damn, she was adorable.

As she checks out her book, Jo lets herself entertain a brief fantasy. In a different world, somewhere where she wasn't just a freak with a knife collection, she would come back to the library tomorrow. She'd pick out a few books, and spend some time in that soft blue armchair tucked behind some shelves, and when she checked out, Cute Librarian would say, "Did you find everything you were looking for today?"

Jo would grin at her. She'd take her books, and she'd say, "Not quite everything." Cute Librarian would start to frown, but Jo would say, "I was hoping I could get your phone number." And then Cute Librarian would smile that radiant smile, and Jo would smile back, and they'd go out for drinks sometime, and they'd fall in love, and get an apartment together, and there wouldn't be any monsters, and they'd live Happily Ever After.

Jo's not completely oblivious. She knows that's not how the world works. She knows she can't do anything of those things, and that even if she could, that that's still not likely the way everything would pan out.

Still, it's a nice daydream.

A really nice one.

Jo turns the radio up as loud as it will go on the drive back to the Roadhouse, and when she walks in, she almost, almost forgets to scowl.

~

"Where the Hell do you think you're going?" Mom snaps.

Jo winces, and turns back from the door. "Just... out," she evades.

"Out where?"

Jo smiles, putting as much annoyance into the expression as she possibly can. "To the library."

Oh, that sounded sarcastic. She meant it, though. Even if she can't ask for that girl's number and make her breakfast and adopt babies with her, there's no harm in looking.

"Really." Mom folds her arms over her chest. "What, have you developed a sudden passion for reading?"

"Something like that, yeah."

Mom lets out a little laugh, and Jo watches her warily.

"And here I thought I'd have you comin' home yesterday tellin' me how you're ' _never gonna do that again_.' I know how you hate missin' the big crowds."

Jo tenses her jaw.

Mom looks at her curiously, shaking her head.

Jo bounces her foot. "Can I go now?"

Mom waves a hand at her, and turns back to the wiping down the bar.

~

Jo curls up in the big squishy blue armchair that afternoon.

Cute Librarian is shelving books again. She's got a little cart that she wheels around, gray and creaky with shitty plastic wheels and two shelves overloaded with books. She also has a mug, with something warm inside it, going by the way she cups her long-fingered hands around it when she takes sips between books. She places it on the edges of shelves as she goes, and picks it up every time she moves over.

That cart must be full of books from just one area, because she stays along the same few shelves. Jo flips pages in the book she's holding - she couldn't tell you what it was about, she just has it an an excuse, if she's honest - and glances up every several seconds. She catches Cute Librarian's eye every few minutes, and the smile that she gets for that, oh, gosh.

It's a little smaller, a little shier, and it's the sweetest damn thing Jo has ever seen.

Aw, Hell.

It's a bad sign that her insides feel so gushy whenever this girl smiles, isn't it?

Jo flips a page, and peeks up through the shelves, and her lips twitch with a grin when she makes eye contact.

She cannot be more forward. She cannot ask this girl on a date. She cannot ask for her number, or ask what's in that mug in the interest of her a warm drink tomorrow, or - or really, she probably shouldn't even be flirting this much right now.

Jo flips a page, and glances up idly, and doesn't stop herself from smiling a little when she meets those pretty dark eyes. They friggin'  _sparkle_ , come  _on_.

Of course, Cute Librarian does eventually reach the end of the books on her cart. She'll probably relocate to another section - but not before giving Jo another smile, a big, full one, gorgeous on those wide lips.

Jo can actually feel her insides melt.

The girl steps around the bookshelves to stand just a few feet in front of Jo - oh, God - and she says, "Did you find everything you were looking for today?"

It's a test of Jo's willpower to smile back, nod, and say only, "Yeah, thanks."

She won't put this sweet girl at risk. And she can't risk being labeled a lesbian freak at this library - this is the only place within a wide radius with a collection extensive enough to include good books on old lore.

"Good," Cute Librarian smiles. "Let me know if that changes."

Jo wouldn't be able to stop smiling even if she wanted to, so where's the point in trying? "Will do," she promises.

Cute Librarian turns back to her cart and grasps its handle, and Jo grips her book so hard that she feels the hard cover leaving indents in her skin. She doesn't get to ask girls on dates. She doesn't get to be normal. She wouldn't want to be normal - this is who she is. And she's okay with that, really. It's just... sometimes, maybe she wants to be something else, too.

Before she disappears down the aisle, Cute Librarian half- turns back. "Oh," she says over her shoulder, "I'm Anna."

She smiles again before she goes, a brilliant, beautiful smile that Jo is one-hundred-percent certain liquefies her insides.

~

Mom gets suspicious.

She seems to trust Jo at least a little bit, because she doesn't ask  _too_  many questions, but she does narrow her eyes when Jo goes to the library again for the third time that week.

Or maybe she just doesn't think Jo could get into much trouble in a library, of all places. Honestly, that seems more likely.

Whatever.

Jo already has a slight smile on her face as she walks into the library, rubbing her hands together to warm them from the snowy weather. She has an actual list of books to to find this time; when she'd mentioned a trip to the library, Ash had scurried off to find a shirt with a mumbled something like "I need books!"

She'd convinced him to write down the titles instead of coming with her. Thank goodness.

Sitting at a computer, Jo peers around the library. She spares a brief hope that she's being somewhat discreet, but she's really not too concerned.

She catches sight of a flash of bright hair, and smiles as she begins to type, sneaking upwards glances just often enough to keep track of Anna's movement around the library.

Anna introduced herself - that means she's interested, right? The way she kept smiling at Jo, all soft and sweet and shy - that meant something, didn't it? 'Cause if she's interested, then Jo doesn't have to worry about hiding her gayness in the interests of still using this library.

It still wouldn't mean she could act on anything. She still can't afford to get attached; Mom made attachments, and look how that turned out.

Okay, though. One reason not to proposition her is better than two.

Jo finds Ash's books (an odd collection of science fiction and and involved computer-programming, as well as a book that makes Jo wonder when he learned Portuguese without telling her), and then peruses the shelves for a while near where Anna is working.

Anna stops re-shelving after a while, though, and takes up position behind the check-out desk.

Jo's heart thuds in her chest. She glances down at the short stack of books she carries, wincing a little at the strangeness of the selections. Chewing on her lip, she spends a few more minutes idling amidst the shelves. Just, y'know, so she's not too obvious.

Then she takes a deep breath to steady herself, switches the stack of books from arm to arm to wipe her hands on her jeans in case they're sweaty, and heads for the check-out desk.

A head of bright red hair is bent over slip of paper when Jo steps up. Jo doesn't mean to grin, but it happens.

"Hi, Anna."

Anna's wide owl-eyes blink up at her, surprised for a moment before recognition softens all her features. Her smile is soft, too.

"I'm Jo."

Anna's still smiling as she takes the offered stack of books and begins scanning their barcodes. She flashes Jo a grin full of bright teeth and sunshine. "Well, did you find everything you were looking for, Jo?"

Jo hesitates, bites her lip.

"Yeah," she says after a moment, smiling.

Anna is all smiles, too, and Jo imagines she is about fifteen seconds away from melting into a puddle of pretty-girl-induced goo.

One of Anna's long, elegant hands rips off a receipt reminding Jo to return the books in three weeks, and she places it atop the stack of books.

"Here you go!" she says brightly, handing the books back.

When Jo accidentally-on-purpose brushes their hands together when she takes the books, she tells herself it's just to see Anna's reaction, it's just to be sure that she's reading this right.

Even though it shouldn't matter, because she still can't do anything even if Anna is interested, and - and - oh, jeez, and Anna's cheeks have warmed up pink and she's giving Jo the softest, sweetest little surprised smile, and fuck, Jo is so fucked.

~

Anna sighs as she replaces books on their shelves with quick, efficient motions. She feels  _ridiculous_. Who does that? Who flirts with someone while at work, and then gets disappointed when they don't come back?

It's not a big deal. She and Jo smiled at each other a few times, and Anna had thought maybe...

but no. Their hands had brushed accidentally and Anna had smiled like the transparent, heart-on-her-sleeve bisexual that she is, and Jo's lovely features had twisted into something uncomfortable. Disappointed, maybe.

Anna should know better by now; she has to stop feeling so attached to any pretty girl who so much as glances her way. It's rare, though. Living in South Dakota and having a preference for women doesn't exactly make dating easy.

She just has to stop being so obvious. Smiling is okay, and offering help is within her job description, but the staring and the lingering and the name-exchanging can't happen again.

Determined to keep her disappointment at a reasonable level, Anna finishes her re-shelving for the evening and stops at the desk to sign-out for the day and retrieve her bag.

A glance out the glass doors tells her it's snowing again, the sky re-carpeting the already frozen landscape in a new layer of cold white. Driving home in that weather will not be a high point in her day.

Frowning, Anna checks her watch, the slim leather brown one she's worn since her brother gave it to her years ago. Castiel is one of only two members of her family she still talks to, and she values him greatly, especially as her life is rather lacking in human interaction.

The stylized black numbers tell her it's only eight past five. She presses her lips together in thought. The bus will stop nearby at seven, if she can just find some way to occupy herself until then.

Well, she's in a library, for goodness sakes; of course she can keep herself entertained.

Anna likes the quiet of the library, the protection of its tall shelves. Working here requires interacting with people, but she enjoys the speaking in hushed tones, and the minimal amount of small talk. Castiel would call her anti-social - Anna prefers "quiet." Her brother also might call her a loner, and Anna's not so sure there's an alternative word she prefers. It's true, she supposes. She values deep connection, the kind she has with her brother, but not so much shallow, everyday interaction.

Perhaps, she thinks without meaning to, that's why Jo's disappearance stung.

She didn't know Jo well, of course. They'd barely even spoken.

There was something about her, though. Maybe it was her quietness, and the way she tucked herself up in the squishy blue chair hidden behind the shelves, and the fact that she'd smiled at Anna without approaching her and making unimportant conversation.

She made Anna feel... comfortable. Warm. Safe in a way that Anna's not used to feeling around people.

Many people see Anna as shy, as someone who with come out of her shell if they just push hard enough - but Jo didn't do that. And Anna isn't shy, she just doesn't care to speak to many people.

Anna finds that she's frowning again, and her head is struck with the beginnings of a light ache.

She doesn't know what had drawn her to Jo, and she doesn't know why she can't just let go of this, and she's frustrated with herself for assuming Jo was interested just because she smiled.

Of course, now she's assuming that Jo is  _not_  interested just because she pulled away. Maybe that was an erred assumption as well.

Oh, but it doesn't matter, because Jo hasn't returned anyway, and Anna needs to let it go.

The out-of-sight blue armchair that Anna likes so much is unoccupied when she reaches it, and she lets herself flop down into its giving cushions. Her bag slides to the floor beside her, and she lets it, content just to sit for a moment.

She just needs to center herself, that's all. She's gotten all wrapped up in this "Jo" situation, and she'll feel better once she's taken a step back.

Frown easing, Anna closes her eyes, listening to the soft rustle of turning pages and shuffling feet around her. She loves the library, loves its dry, papery, non-smell. She loves winter, when everyone hides inside with warm socks and warm mugs of tea, when everything is quiet and still and dormant. She loves being by herself, her legs curled under her in a warm, soft chair, her sketchbook within reach and her mug full of tea from the break room.

She loves all of this, everything about where she is right now.

She's happy on her own, always has been, and even if companionship might be fun, she's not any worse off for not having it.

It's remarkable how quickly negative feelings can dissipate, when looked at from the right angle.

Satisfied, Anna takes a sip of her tea - licorice, because it's warm and rich and sweet and perfect for winter - and digs her sketchbook and a pencil from her bag. She rests the open book on her knees, her tea back on the table beside her, and taps at the blank page with the end of her pencil.

Drawing always helps calm her, as well.

She's happy where she is.

A warm sense of utter contentment infuses her bones as she sits and sketches. She loves winter, and warmth, and quiet, and tea, and drawing - and even if she can't help but notice that two people could easily squeeze into this chair, she is happy as she is.

 

Her pencil lines soon begin to take the form of a girl with soft, soft, soft hair and warm brown eyes, and Anna laughs a little internally, amused but not bothered. She puts care into getting the full curve of Jo's lips just right, and tells herself this will be therapeutic, and resolves to ask for Jo's number if she returns, but otherwise move on.

~

The Roadhouse gets busier as Christmas draws nearer. Ash says that people are "gettin' the party started early!" and Mom says that Christmas just makes people remember how lonely they are.

Jo doesn't care why they're there, she only cares that they're just as bad at poker as the usual crowd.

Well, okay: she also cares that they're keeping her from the library.

She's heard that spending time away from someone helps you get over a crush, but the opposite seems to be happening for her. She just keeps thinking about Anna's little smile when their hands touched, and man, she's just about ready to say "screw hunting" and ask the girl out.

Of course, she can't do that while she's stuck here tending bar. The library is only open for three more days before they close two weeks for the holiday season, and all Jo can do is tap her toes and line her wallet and hope that Mom lets her take the day off tomorrow.

~

It's only because her vacation days will be lost at the end of the year that Anna has taken the day off.

She likes her job, and she never gets sick, and usually she lines up her vacation days with the two weeks of holiday break and spends an extended period of time with Castiel - but Castiel has met someone, he says, and if she wouldn't come early this year that would be ideal, he's sorry, but he's happy, and please, Anna?

Of course she agreed. Of course she did. She loves her brother, and she knows he gets lonely, and she's happy for him. She'll arrive at the same time as Uriel this year, and maybe they can carpool from the airport. That will be nice.

So Anna has the day off, and has nothing to do with herself, and thus... she goes to the library. It's weird, isn't it, to spend your day of vacation sitting in your place of work? Anna's pretty sure it's weird. She's certain Uriel would say it was weird; Castiel might do the same thing himself, so she can't be sure what his thoughts would be.

In all honesty, she really is here because she likes the library. She has tea, and her sketchbook, and reading material surrounding her; it will be easy to pass the day here, and it will be more enjoyable than a day spent at home.

She stakes her claim on the soft blue chair early in the day, a small stack of books beside her and a sketchbook in her bag. She sits, and she reads, and time passes.

~

Mom lets her have the next evening off. Jo still has to work the lunch hour and clean-up, but she's free for the evening. She doesn't quite know why Mom is suddenly lenient, and that worries her a little, but it doesn't mean she won't take advantage of it.

She pulls up to the library an hour and fourteen minutes before their six o'clock winter closing time, settling a grin on her lips to hide any anxiousness.

It doesn't take her long to locate Anna. All folded up in that blue chair with a book resting open on her thighs and a mug steaming on the table beside her, Anna could be a winter advertisement - for sweaters, or something, Jo doesn't know. All she knows is that Anna looks soft and cozy and adorable, and it makes Jo feel uncomfortably warm all over despite having just come in from the freezing December air.

Jesus, she's so screwed.

In the interest of not looking like a total creep, Jo browses aimlessly among the bookshelves for a while, stopping twice to pull out a book and read its summary before returning it to its shelf.

It doesn't take long for her patience to get the better of her. She wanders back in the direction of Anna's chair, and does, at least, manage to keep her steps slow, maintaining the appearance that she's here for the books. She grins a little internally, at that. Of course people will assume she's here for the books; she's in a  _library_ , for fuck's sake.

The thing is, once she's standing only a few shelves away from Anna, she still feels like a creep.

She can't ask someone out while they're working; aren't they, like, obligated to be nice to you, or something?

But she haggled with Mom to get the night off, and she came all the way out here, and she resigned herself to the fact that if she asks this girl out, she can't hunt unless they break up. She won't hurt someone like that, not ever, not like what her dad did to Mom. It's not that she holds it against him - she respects the Hell out of Dad - but she refuses to ever cause someone so much pain.

Okay, but how can she do this without being creepy?

"Jo?"

Sometimes, Jo thinks, the universe is a wonderful place.

She looks up, blinking, feigning surprise. "Oh, hey!"

The enthusiasm in her voice isn't even too obvious.

Awesome.

She gives Anna a once-over, pleased with an excuse to stare for a moment. A slightly over-sized sweater covers her arms and torso with thick, dark-blue knit, and dark jeans cover her long legs.

Jo pretends that she's taking in Anna's posture, and the book in her hand, and the tea beside her. "Are you working right now?"

Anna smiles.

Jo's heart must be as impatient as she is, because it speeds right up.

"No," Anna answers after a moment. Something like embarrassment touches her cheeks with pink. "I have the day off, but I didn't have anywhere else to be."

Jo nods. "Yeah. I've been caught working the past few days, and now I honestly don't know what to do with myself."

Anna's smile only grows. "I'm sorry you've had to work all day." She doesn't look sorry.

Jo grins, waves it off. "No, that's okay."

And then they just...  _smile_  at each other. It's gross, and sappy, and honestly Jo kind of wishes she'd been a normal girl in high-school so she'd know how to deal with crap like this.

"I like the library," Anna admits eventually. "I like how calm everything is here." She hesitates briefly. "My brother would tell you I'm kind of a loner."

Jo makes her smile as gentle as possible. "Yeah? People would probably say the same about me." She glances around, because Anna's smile is just too warm to look at. "I can see this being a nice place to spend time," she agrees. "It's a nice library."

"Have you been to a lot of libraries?" Anna asks. She looks genuinely interested, and God, that's weird - between college where she didn't fit in, and the chauvinist hunting community where she's not valued at all, Jo's not used to people looking at her like she's worth learning about. Her face feels inexplicably hot all of a sudden.

"A few," she says. "Yeah."

Anna's smile has dimmed a little since they've started talking, but not in a way that suggests she's losing interest; she just looks relaxed in her comfortable chair, content with the conversation.

Then her eyes do their fucking twinkly thing, and Jo digs her fingernails into her palm.

"Big reader, huh?" Anna says.

"Oh. Not really, actually. I'm... not much of a reader," Jo admits, shrugging a little.

Wait.

Fuck.

Anna's still smiling, her eyebrows rising closer to her hairline. "Really?"

Oh, fuck.

"What's been bringing you to the library so often?"

 _Fuck_.

~

Anna realizes she's smiling way too much, but she can't seem to stop. Jo is  _blushing_. There is no way to misread this, not at all.

Feeling warm, excited energy tingle through her bloodstream, Anna unfolds her legs and sets her book down on the arm of the chair.

"Your cheeks are pink," she tells Jo, who looks mortified. "Are you cold? It was miserable outside when I came in this morning."

Jo blinks at her, looking vaguely ill.

"Come on," Anna says, stepping forward. "As long as you don't tell anyone, I'll get you some tea."

Heart creeping towards her throat, Anna closes the distance between them with a smile, grabbing Jo's hand as she passes.

She thinks she might hear Jo breathe, " _shit_ ," behind her, but she can't be sure. She allows herself to grin as they walk, keeping a step ahead of Jo.

Thankfully, she manages to school her expression into something a little calmer by the time they reach the door to the break room.

"Wait here," she murmurs, dropping Jo's hand.

Jo nods mutely. There's a tiny, shocked smile on her lips, her pretty eyes wide as she watches Anna open the door.

Anna grins to herself as she retrieves a fresh mug from the cabinet, and grins as she digs out a bag of tea, and grins still as she presses the lever beside the sink for hot water. She grins as she waits for the mug to fill, and grins as she bounces the tea bag a few times in the hot water.

Her grin is only slightly more subdued when she opens the door to greet Jo, holding out the mug.

She leads the way back to the blue chair with Jo trailing behind her, mug cupped between her hands. Absently, she wonders if this is how it feels to have a puppy follow you around; her family never allowed pets, when she was younger, but Anna always sort of wished they had a dog.

The blue chair is still empty, space saved by Anna's bag on the floor and book on the arm. It looks as soft and inviting as ever. Anna stops in front of it, and pauses to smile at Jo.

She speaks in a whisper, because it just seems right. They're in a library, after all. "I think," she says, "that if we squeeze, we can both fit in this chair."

Jo's smile is huge and beautiful, and Anna leans a couple inches down to place a kiss on her cheek.

Her cheeks are notably redder, after that.

Her mug joins Anna's on the table, and she joins Anna in the chair, and Anna thinks that yes, she loves the library, and she loves winter, and tea, and reading, and soft chairs... and she could also learn to love having someone to share those things with.

**Author's Note:**

> [on tumblr](http://bennylafic.tumblr.com/post/89411852759/sapphirestiel-asked-anna-jo-where-anna-is-a)


End file.
